SWAMPSCOTT — Town officials met with community members at the Senior Center on Wednesday for the Stetson Avenue/Franklin Street neighborhood meeting to discuss traffic concerns and explore potential solutions to the issue.
Residents were encouraged to share their thoughts and concerns during the event, which started at 6:30 p.m. Economic and Community Development Director Marzie Galazka, Police Chief Ruben Quesada, Lt. Mike Frayler, and Police Officer Kevin Reen were in attendance to connect with the community.
Officer Kevin Reen began the evening by introducing the panel and thanking the crowd for gathering to discuss the issue.
“Going to collect our notes and create a memo, sharing that going forward, today’s objective is that we want to hear from you, get input,” Reen said.
“There’s a speedboard we put up — the software of the old speedboard would not cooperate with our products,” Reen said. “We’re having a difficult time gathering the data, and could never hone in on speedboards and get data.”
He said the department collects speed, maximum speed, minimum speed, average speed, and total vehicles traveled on the road, which are all broken down into 15-minute increments.
“To find what speed was at a certain time, if I dig into the weeds, I can get between 1:15-1:30 p.m., and while the average speed would be 30 mph, the fastest might have been 41 mph, and slowest might have been six mph,” he said.
From the month of March, they collected a total vehicle count of 14,914 on Stetson Avenue. Reen said while the average speed was 27 mph, the 85th percentile was 41 mph.
“52 mph was the fastest we’ve seen all summer,” Reen added.
April went up to 44,642 vehicles on Stetson Road, the average speed was 27, and the 85 percentile was 3.
“There were 55,032 vehicles on Stetson Avenue in May. … I’d love to put another sign facing the opposite direction, further down, by Barnstable Road or even further,” Reen said. “One of the things I’m correlating this to (is) a significant impact on traffic routes because of the work at the Westcott building.”
In July, they counted 45,754 drivers on the road, with the average speed dropped to 26 mph for the total average and 30 mph for the 85 percentile.
One resident asked to elaborate more on the speedboard and asked if it was located on the street.
“It’s hung on a telephone pole at 14 feet high, a monitor inside a metal box that collects all data as it comes through. Once it passes the speedboard, it collects nothing behind it,” Reen said.
One resident complained about speed on Stetson Avenue. He said when kids come around the corner, they look to the left but don’t look to the right, and said he’s almost been hit while crossing the road.
“What I would like to see is changing the curbing so we can shrink the crosswalk, to where the road is still accessible for emergency vehicles,” Reen said.
Quesada called the speeding in the area “unacceptable.
“If a car is going down stetson flying, but if there may be inattention or texting involved … I’m not afraid to tell officers that ‘I need you out here tonight.’ There’s no call that just goes unnoticed or unheard,” Quesada said. “What about the vehicles we didn’t catch? It’s a way to drill down on the data, we know it’s bothersome to residents. … I want to reassure you that speeding is unacceptable.”
Another resident shared his concern about cars coming off Paradise Road both ways and the amount of traffic coming down from Stetson Avenue, calling the speeding “crazy.”
Another resident said he was in favor of speedbumps in the area to help slow down traffic.
“We’re going to work with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Works to figure out how to construct a new corner on the end of Franklin Street, and I also would like to look into the position of the speedbump,” Reen said.
Another resident said that on Norfolk Avenue she noticed speedbumps had an effect on slowing drivers down.
“I agree with all you’ve said, and what I’ll do is carry this forward to Gino Cresta,” Reen said. “We’re going to work on rectifying that.”
One resident said it’s an issue that there’s no speed limit sign at either end of the street on Stetson Avenue.
“There should be three new signs on each end, as well as the start, middle and end,” Reen said. “The next thing we want to do is a rapid flashing beacon with the crosswalk, thermal-painted at the mid-point of Stetson Avenue.”
Another resident said road narrowing makes the most sense, and would like to see it on Franklin Street by the crosswalk.
One resident asked how the project would be funded going forward.
“There are grants that we’re working on getting, and we’re working with State Sen. Brendan Crighton and State Rep. Jenny Armini to help us. A little bit goes a long way,” Reen said.
Quesada added that this was incorporated into the Capital Improvement Plan, and the department is working to see that the issue gets mitigated.
Wilson said one flashing beacon for the crosswalk costs about $10,000.
“We have improvements on Paradise Road coming … and we’ll be there when the school year starts to collect data,” Wilson said.
Quesada said he’s exploring different options to help mitigate the issue.
“We’ve talked to Rep. Armini about the use of photo-radar at intersections,” Queasda said. “It’s proposed that a town or city under 20,000 residents can have one photo-radar system installed.”
Wilson said the crosswalks on Paradise Road are being repainted to be more noticeable to drivers. Reen said the next steps will be repainting the crosswalks on Stetson Avenue and Franklin Street.
“One thing we talked about is the planters, that’s an easy fix,” Galazka said. “Another is to look at road diet, or narrowing of the street, and what we could do is create a designated smaller bike-lane, or plastic markers that we could try on a temporary basis to see if it works.”
Reen said a memo will be compiled with everything discussed throughout the evening, which will be mailed to residents and posted online.
